The Language Barrier across English-Speaking Countries: An Analysis of PISA Mathematics Achievement.

Recent research examining immigrant student achievement found that immigrant students exhibit similar achievement to non-immigrant students when other factors are taken into account. This research, consistent with other analyses, suggests that what has traditionally been thought of as an immigrant disadvantage may in fact be capturing a language barrier. To examine the language disadvantage and its role in educational outcomes, I analyze 2015 PISA mathematics achievement within five English-speaking countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Using within- and cross-level interactions in HLM regression modeling, we examine how other student- and school-characteristics, namely student socioeconomic status, immigrant generation, and school administration type, moderate the effect of this language disadvantage on mathematics achievement. The language gap ranges from being practically and significantly inconsequential (Canada) to being expected to result in over half a school year gap in other countries (United States). Moderation analysis suggests that individuals who speak English at home benefit more from socioeconomic advantage than those who speak another language. In terms of immigrant generation, across all five countries the largest difference in predicted achievement between those who speak English at home and those who do not is found among students who fall in the native-born category as opposed to those who are either first- or second-generation immigrants. The interaction between school administration type and language spoken in the home is statistically non-significant in all five countries, which is likely a result of small cell sizes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]